Newsletter Articles: Retail Strategy

A few weeks back, the U.S. Congress and the White House were going around the horn on whether or not to give the president “fast track” authority to negotiate the terms of a trade agreement called the “Trans Pacific Partnership” (“TPP”). To put this in historical context, the U.S. Constitution has something called the Treaty […]

This is part 7 of an on-going series on the history of omni-channel. Part 1 addressed the point when customer centricity and “cross-channel” (the early days of omni-channel) first merged and became the foundation of what most people mean when they say omni-channel today. Part 2 talked about the tipping point of executive awareness, when […]

People go to stores for a reason. Why? At this point, it’s different for pretty much everyone. Some just want to get out of the house. Some may want to steal away from work for a few. Some are looking to physically experience the items they’ve been looking at online for hours on end. But […]

Back in 2008, I wrote a Retail Paradox Weekly piece where I recounted a conversation with a friend from the venture capital world. He was explaining why venture capitalists tend to stay away from retail-specific tech innovations: “venture capitalists have found that retail is a poor sector to target, because retailers tend to be cheap […]

A version of this article originally appeared in my Forbes blog. I thought it might be useful for RSR’s readers as well. And most importantly, I’m VERY curious to hear your thoughts too. In Miami, a new version of “The Design District” is rising out of the ashes of the old Design District. This four-block-square […]

I had two conversations last week, each independent of the other, that reinforced once again that data breaches are serious threats deserving of a more proactive stance from corporate Boards of Directors. The first happened while I was having dinner with a good friend, another “recovering CIO” who has stayed active as an executive-for-hire, running […]

This is part 6 of an on-going series on the history of omni-channel. Part 1 addressed the point when customer centricity and “cross-channel” (the early days of omni-channel) first merged and became the foundation of what most people mean when they say omni-channel today. Part 2 talked about the tipping point of executive awareness, when […]

Last week I spent some time at the GT Nexus Bridges User Group Conference. This is the second conference I attended this year where project management fundamentals were highlights of the program. The other was JDA’s Focus conference, where I was treated to a session on capturing business requirements. This particular session featured Vantage Operations […]

My partner Nikki Baird and I saw a lot of interesting things last week at the Internet Retailer show in Chicago, but chief among them was Jason Goldberg’s presentation on opening day. President of Target.com and Mobile, Goldberg came to Target in 2013, after having spent years at Gilt, Hayneedle, and Amazon. Whereas a lot […]

Last Friday, we were having a burger’n’beer dinner at Jernigan’s Tap House & Grill in Nevada City, California (not far from our new home). The place is tiny – six tables and a well-used oak bar with just enough room for eight barstools. But aside from the chalkboard that lists the day’s hoppy brew selections, […]